marketing, strategy, innovation & social media

Menu

Pollution Taking its Toll on Chinese Economy

As Reuters pointed out recently in a new article relayed by French daily La tribune on June 5th, 2006, the state of pollution in China is becoming critical. The news was also relayed by other newspapers around the world today, like the Los Angeles Times, China Daily and the Globe and mail.

Not only are 60% of the Chinese territory (these are official figures quoted by Reuters; being official, they might also be under estimated) is said to be ecologically fragile, 90% of Chinese meadows are undergoing serious desertification and degradation conditions due to the staggering rate of increase in intensive agriculture and manufacturing industries.

Now there is hope too because the cost of such degradations to the Chinese natural environment are estimated at approx. $ 200 billion per annum i.e. around 10% of the China GDP. Hopefully, this could trigger new thoughts about a system which is deadly for both our planet and its inhabitants. At the end of the day, our economy is also relying on natural resources and is highly dependent on them. Maybe Al Gore’s Hollywood-style scary movie entitled The Inconvenient truth could also put sustainable development on the agenda, and force us to be really serious about it.